Author: Garth Beyer

Poetry Night 011

Garth Beyer

Yet the World Still Moves On

 

Soaring to the outskirts of the demands being made,

In this world by suffocating gentlemen shaking hands but not getting paid.

The relevance of what lies below makes no sense to them,

As if any transcendence to the most fathomable possibilities were slow,

And the camera can take snapshot after snapshot on the go.

Still the blank canvas creeps to such an alternative degree.

That even if the light above your head flashed, you still could not see.

The depravities of the self-less inner case,

Cannot be transferred unless a whole is cut through the base,

The prescribed perception only lies.

And some people dance and some people die.

 

–          Everett

 

Stay Positive and Personify

Garth E. Beyer

Changing The Light On Job Security

Garth Beyer

Job security is not a constant. – This is not a good thing.

For years I thought job security was uncontrollable that every occupation had a permanent level of job security. Obviously that is not true, but that’s actually a great thing. Now, Wiki says job security is dependent on economy, prevailing business conditions, and the individuals personal skills. How wrong are they!

  • Job security is not dependent on economy, economy is dependent on job security.
  • Job security is not dependent on prevailing business conditions, prevailing business conditions are dependent on job security.
  • Job security is not dependent on the individuals personal skills, job security IS the individuals personal skill.

Let me share a personal story, story of missing out on $1,520 but getting $2,560 in the end.

I have worked as a Data Entry Clerk and got paid $9.50 an hour for 40 hours a week. There was a large set of online forms that needed to be entered into the database. Rather then spending 4 weeks entering each record individually into the database, I spent an hour and a half working on downloading the file and exporting it to an access document and from there, reformatting it to fit the excel spreadsheet where I was to enter the data. In essence, I got paid $14.50 for the hour and a half I spent reconfiguring the files instead of taking four weeks to enter the data manually which would have made me $1,520. Some would think I am senile for destroying my job security.

Why did I say I got $2,560 in the end? Because that is what I will make in four weeks with my new raise.

Bringing You Into The Light

Working smart and job security go hand in hand.

Consider reading The Lazy Way To Success Sample Chapter

Now, I have quickly learned that working smart always creates greater benefits than working hard. In fact, working hard can actually cause damage. For example, you can try and carry 5 bags of mulch from the front yard to the back and pull a muscle in your back. Or you can put the 5 bags in a wheel barrel and roll it casually to the backyard.

1. Well, since you pulled your back, you can’t even bend down to spread the mulch across the garden. Job security gone…and your wife is upset.

2. Well, since you were smart and used the wheel barrel, you had enough energy to spread the mulch before your wife got home. Job security and your wife’s happiness, granted.

Analogy: Apply it to your job!

Spreading mulch is = to your daily work.

Your wife’s happiness is = to your pay check.

Work Smart > Work Hard

If There Is One Thing I Hate

It’s being told to slow down and I get told it at work all the time. It’s not because I am too fast that I screw up, I tell everyone that I have one pace and it’s called “quality” and I am damn good at it. They tell me to slow down because all their lives they thought job security meant always having something on the to-do list.  Like Wiki, how wrong are they!

The Spotlight

I said job security is the individuals skill. The economy, business success, and everything else to do with career and money is dependent on this skill because this skill says everything about a persons character, integrity, work-ethic, attitude, and every other quality that defines a successful person.

If a person can turn a 4 week task into one hour, I’ll hire them and give them a permanent position with a lot more money. If there is a boss who doesn’t do that, clearly that workplace is not for them. Which leads me to the last factor of job security. When you get tasks done far before the deadline, when you deliver greater quality than is expected and when you have a positive attitude about it, what you thought you lost out on, always comes back – with company.

My biggest scenario is what I mentioned earlier, missing out on $1,520 but getting $2,560 in the end.

When you look at job security as skill, you can make much larger increases in income and quality of life then me. In fact, if you change the light on job security, it wont be long until you can say that you don’t even need a job.

Stay Positive and Try To Beat My $1,040 Increase

Garth E. Beyer

Garth’s Biff With Social Media “Experts”

Garth Beyer

What do cracked clay vases, my grandma, the sowing machine and specialization all have in common?

They are old, antique, and are either stuck up in the attic or in the grave.

 

You can no longer become “successful” by focusing on one area of life. Painters can’t become successful without knowing different construction and electric techniques. Teachers can’t become successful without knowing parenting and counseling strategies. Fitness trainers can’t become successful without knowing basic psychology lessons and communication skills. It simply can’t be done. Success can’t be reached on one path.

Every boss, every consumer – the entire world expects the very best of you, the very best in a variety of ways.

Well, you can see why there is some contradiction in being called a “Social Media Expert”. What is social media? How many branches of social media are there? Do you think it’s even possible that a person can be an expert in every one of those branches? If so, I wouldn’t want to be refereed to as a social media expert, I would prefer to be called a billionaire.

Sure, Peter Shankman makes a great statement on social media experts “being an expert in Social Media is like being an expert at taking the bread out of the refrigerator. You might be the best-bread-taker-outer in the world, but you know what? The goal is to make an amazing sandwich, and you can’t do that if all you’ve done in your life is taken the bread out of the fridge.”

However, I think Shankman has it wrong. The goal is still to make an amazing sandwich, but Social Media experts not only take the bread out, but all the other ingredients, and put it together and try to make an amazing sandwich. The problem is that the sandwich always sucks because they can’t be the best at every process of sandwich making. I repeat, there is no such thing as a social media expert.

Sympathies to the original “Twitter Sandwich”

The point is, that we can all say we are experts and professionals in social media, but the truth is the only thing we can all say that we are is journalists. We can write about social media all we want, it simply makes us more of a journalist. This post just made me more of a journalist if I may say so.

 

Stay Positive and Spice Up Your Sandwich With Variety

Garth E. Beyer

Dressing Casual But Getting Looked At Like The Top 1%

Garth Beyer

With the recent news about the Waitress Tip of 1% on a $133.54 bill, I thought I would shed some further light on the fake and the real aspects of it, involving some insight on a new form of charitable giving.

The Bill Was Fake: The bill was photoshopped and a 20% tip was given on the real bill which was $33.54 dollars

The Tip Was Real: but the rest of the situation was fake. It wasn’t a wealthy banker who tipped 1%, it was a conventional person. It wasn’t just one person, it happened in a million restaurants and it happened yesterday too, and today as well. It will most likely occur again tomorrow.

The wealthy are still tipping reasonably well. It’s the middle class (if you can even call it that anymore) that are tipping terribly low amounts.

A Big Tip To Erasing The Class Monetary Gap

Occasionally, I toss spare change into the fireman boot, or a jar for the homeless or in a donation box at an art museum. However, a lot of people simply give to give. They give because they know the power of giving, the benefits of it, what it attracts back and know, without needing to be shown, that they are making a difference in one to one billion people’s lives with a single contribution.

But have you ever thought about where/who you are giving to? Did you ever think that spare change you are dropping into the donation jar for the homeless could have a much more powerful impact on either

1. Something you are more passionate about or

2. Something that gives a greater impact to a current issue?

Let’s cover our tracks before you walk with me with this idea by understanding what I am NOT saying. I am not suggesting that there are charities that don’t deserve to receive contributions. I am not saying the homeless do not deserve to be given compensation and direction. Know now, that I am one of the most optimistic people you will meet and I pride myself with my talent for finding how to make positive out-of-the-box improvements to all areas of life. Well, are you ready to walk an idea with me?

When I ask someone what the current biggest problem in the world is they either say something that we can’t change or grumble a disheartened “this damn economy”.

And I agree. But I am one of the few middle/lower class people who are doing something about it. I find my actions to be an oxymoron of the saying “the little things matter” or “it’s the little things that add up to the big things”. Why? Let me tell you what I do first.

Whenever I go out to eat I plan to tip between 8-20 dollars. Sometimes more if they are really great (I have once tipped $47  on a $47.00 meal). When I go out to dinner with this mindset, the universe almost naturally sends me incredible waiters and waitress’. But that is beside the point, the fact is that I feel that these people have a tough job with the current economic situation, far too many people tip them less and less.

Instead of making small money donations to every box, jar, jug and open hand I see, I save them to make huge donations to middle class workers in restaurants. On top of that, the middle class workers at restaurants are typically 16-24 years old doing their best to pay through college and have fun. With the mindset of humanity, here is a question for your character and integrity, would you rather donate $100,000 dollars over a span of three years to students working to pay for college or the same amount and time span to the elderly in a retirement home?

The question stated more simply, would you rather add to the current flow of economics that directly affects you, your way of life and everyone around you? Or add to the (pardon the pun) dying economic flow of those nearing death? Which will make a more positive and immediate impact on the growth of society and the economy as a whole? Which will close this class gap (money gap) quicker?

The 1% Reason To Tip Big

  • You get viewed like you are in the top 1% class. No really, there is no better vision then picturing how happy you just made your server as you leave.

Stay Positive and Tip BIG

Garth E. Beyer

Both similar and unlike the wealthy banker who also left the “tip” to ‘get a real job’, I too leave a note. After all, you can’t expect everyone to make the right choices with the extra money they did not expect, so I always give them a reminder of what they can achieve (their dreams) and to go after them.

Buddha for the Optimist

Garth Beyer

Buddha with $1,000,000 shredded dollars inside. -Toronto

We read and are told endlessly to identify ourselves with our thoughts. We are persuaded to lay down our minds at the mercy of their own power. Walking with the dialogue of our minds. Buddha said “All that we are is a result of what we have thought”. You should well know that he was not the only, Earl Nightingale wrote about it in The Strangest Secret, W. Clement Stone lived it in his quote “Whatever the mind can conceive, it can achieve”, Bob Proctor and Mike Dooley speak endlessly about The Secret and quite frankly, anyone who has read about someone who achieved some form of greatness, has read about the law of attraction in one form or another.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I learned about the secret -the power of the mind- as a young child. You would think that learning this power at an early age would destine me for very early greatness. However, it created the opposite. I became afraid of my thoughts and I am sure I directed a lot of negative events in my life to occur because once I thought them, I felt it was out of my control. And so it was.

One day, I learned that you would have to think of a negative thought one million times in order for it to have the same power in the world as thinking the opposite, the positive thought, once. From then on, for every negative thought, I would think the positive form 3-5 times for good measure. However, this was not good enough for me and isn’t for many others who know the power of their thoughts. The miracle of our lives would be to never have a single negative thought each day.  Perhaps when enough people learn and understand the secret, we may be able to attain this sort of utopia. But for now the best those who know the secret potential of the mind can do is to teach those who are ignorant of the fact or surrounded by too much negativity to recognize their strength.

Those who feel they cannot control their minds, or are surrounded by negativity, – you CAN escape. While the “thoughts become things” philosophy works for the optimistic, I know it does not work for all, for you… but it will. The following is the most simple and honest technique you can use to understand that although your mind creates the world around you, you create what is in your mind and YOU are the most beautiful, enlightened and powerful person.

The only way to start living the life of the successful, of the strong, of the magical is to remember that while your destiny mirrors your thoughts, YOU are the force that moves through your thoughts, your mind, your body, your spirit, you entity. No matter the thoughts going on in your mind, positive, negative or none at all, you are always connected with your Self and there is no greater or most positive force then that. When you find yourself losing the reigns of your thoughts, when you find the world around you crumbling and your mind falling into a slump, remember that your thoughts originate from your Self, and your Self is pretty damn incredible.

 

Stay Positive and Your Self

Garth E. Beyer

 

Be In It For The Long-Run: Product Longevity

Garth Beyer

You are the only one who wants instant benefits.

Everyone else is investing in long term results.

Quality has devoured quantity. Customers, employers, investors, marketers – they all expect the quality to last. That is what they are after.

Let’s look at the product life cycle and Mac’s for instance. Jef Raskin began by focusing on the market introduction and growth state, but it was Steve Jobs who maintained these two stages at the same time as the maturity stage of Apple which allowed them to continuously keep the lead. Their survival was the function of disciplined attention to brand identity and equity. While that was the marketing aspect, many fail to realize the product longevity attitude that was put into Mac’s. They were made to be in it for the long-run. The greatest selling point a product could have – longevity.

Convenience was the heart of the largest product sales, until it became standard in every sale of the product. Nothing will profit without convenience to the consumer. Now that there is no longer a competition of who is more convenient, it is a matter of what product will last the longest.

Neil Kokemuller of Demand Media says that, “Although predicting specific longevity of a product life cycle is impossible, businesses want a general idea of the expected length of the life cycle for optimized production and marketing planning. Technology life cycles tend to unfold fairly quickly as competition intensifies and technology evolves. Missing the timing of a prime market opportunity can mean your product fails in the market. Additionally, marketers and salespeople need to know whether they are promoting a stable, consistent and reputable brand with a longer life, or a new and improved, or cutting-edge product.”

 

The Dexterity Of “Product” Longevity – It’s Universal

Bloggers who receive the most views, are creating posts that can be read with even a larger impact 1-3 years from now.

Investors don’t care about the start-up price, they care about consistency in equity over the next 10 years.

Business’s cannot even start-up without the stability to last for 5+ years, and that number is steadily increasing.

Even the underrated occupations are falling victim to the rising standards of consumers.

Painters are being asked how long the paint job will last and people will pay more for the number of years.

Personal Fitness Trainers are expected to teach clients the lessons necessary to keep the body they want.

 

What other scenarios can you think of?

 

Stay Positive and Haul Long

Garth E. Beyer

Garth’s Style of Living the 4-Hour Body and Becoming Superhuman

Garth Beyer

Reading Time:  6 min

“How do you become more productive?”

“Richard Branson leaned back and thought for a second…Twenty people sat around him at rapt attention, wondering what a billionaire’s answer would be to one of the big questions — perhaps the biggest question — of business…Then he broke the silence: ‘Work Out.'”

Tim Ferriss has become a hero of mine after I heard his name mentioned at a business workshop. I read the 4 hour work week and if you recall my post for my first Toastmasters speech, I mentioned he was one of the top 5 influencers in my life. Recently, I have been recalling tips and strategies from the 4-Hour Body “An Uncommon Guide To Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman”. Only after taking Tim’s challenge of making myself the experiment, did I learn a few more things that will help you on your way through incorporating the advice in the book, in your life. I call it the 4.5-Hour Body since the lessons will add on some time to the experiment, but will also add on the results.

Cracking The Harajuku Moment

Tim starts by saying there is no point in following the advice in his book until you have your Harajuku Moment: The epiphany that turns a nice-to-have into a must-have.

I am positive that I have not been the only one to start following Tim’s tips without a Harajuku moment. So how did I follow through when so many others failed to receive results for lack of their Harajuku moment?

The Harajuku Moment[s]

Ever since I had mononucleosis in 5th grade when I lost all my baby fat and plenty more of  my muscle, I have been called skinny by almost everyone I meet.

In middle school, I lost nearly every arm wrestling match I had with my friends.

During high school basketball, I never wanted to take my shirt off because of my paleness, skinniness and bacne.

After meeting a girl, I couldn’t have any other guy able to ‘take me’.

So far, these are the biggest moments that have motivated me to truly follow Tim’s advice in his book the 4-hour Body to become super human. The reason why I could follow through while so few others without a Harajuku moment could was that I had Harajuku moment[s] throughout my life.

However, I agree that having a Harajuku moment will amp up the results tenfold. Nothing could have gotten me as motivated to make larger improvements then when

Someone once important to me said she would like me to gain some more weight and lean muscle.

While she meant it in a positive way, in my mind I could only think “She thinks I’m skinny and weak.” This alone may not have gotten me to make vast changes, but it was the cherry on top of all the other layers of degradation I have received throughout the years.

To crack the Harajuku moment, write a list of all the past smaller moments.

Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories

Photos

The more you begin to do things after your Harajuku Moment(s), the more you will wish you had taken photos. Tim says, “The fastest way to correct a behavior is to be aware of it in real-time, not after-the-fact.”

Reminder: Take direct photos in the same light and same area every time. You will have an incredibly hard time seeing the relationship between your photos if you do not follow this advice. There is a reason I don’t have before and after pictures.

What Tim failed to mention was the mental battle that goes along with it (both in real-time AND after-the-fact). When taking picture, you have to keep seeing what you want, instead of focusing in on what is. Especially when “what is”, is a lack of results or even a backtrack. The reason I pushed through was that I looked at the photo process the same as the Slow-Carb diet/binge day process. During the diet, it’s typical to gain up to 5 pounds after binge day but it will go back down even further than when it spiked up. I had to take this mental attitude toward the photos. If I did not see progress or saw my body showing the opposite direction I wanted, I had to remind myself that this was a process and my body is going to have its ups and downs – it’s the end result that matters and that is what you need to continuously focus on.

And the results after only two weeks are incredible.

Measurement + A Bit of Competition = Motivation

By the time you view this post, I am going to expect that you know that what can’t be measured, can’t be managed.

Beginning Estimate:

16% body-fat according to the reference pictures in the book.

Neck: 14 inches

Chest: 35.5 inches

Waist: 31.5 inches

Hips: 37 inches

Thighs: 21.5 inches

Calves: 15 inches

Biceps: 11 inches.

Weight: 165 pounds.

My most recent measurement will be found at the end.

Like the majority of people, I feel that I have an average amount of competition adrenaline. Competition streams in all of our veins, some more than others because they have learned to harness it to become Superhuman. While I had the competition of wanting to be bigger and better than my friends, my biggest challenge was that my roommate was also doing the diet and I knew that she was going after pure and noticeable results. I found my real competition. My point: When you don’t have competition, make it.

The Slow-Carb Diet

is only hard if you don’t like to cook (like me). Realize that I said “don’t like”, not “don’t know how”. Lucky for me, I left it up to my roommate to control the Slow-Carb diet and cook the majority of the meals.

The fact that there are so few things you can eat makes cooking and making meals easy. Actually, the diet might even add an extra hour a day to your schedule. While you have to be creative when you cook, you don’t have to spend so much time cooking. The meals required for the Slow-Carb diet can be made for a week in one day.

A Precaution to Air-Squats

Stretch before you do them.

I went into the bathroom at work to perform my squats and slightly pulled my hamstring because I had been sitting for most of the morning. Just because air-squats are a very light form of exercise, stretching beforehand is still vital. (Clearly).

How To Cheat Out Of Ice Baths

If you are like me, you won’t take ice baths. A quick tip to avoid them but still get the results – take up the 4 Hour Body challenge during the winter.

Instead of ice baths, I wore less layers and let my body feel the cold without tipping the point of getting the flu – which the Slow-Carb diet and exercise will work to prevent anyways. Want to lose weight and save money? Leave the heat off in your home, make your body work to keep itself warm by burning fat. These two steps take care of the outside of your body. Now, add only drinking ice water to the list and you have yourself roughly the same results as taking an ice bath if not better results.

The Caliber Test

My roommate surprised me by ordering a Caliber device off  the internet so that we could more accurately know our body fat percentage. You will recall that I was at an estimated 16% body fat according to the reference pictures Tim provided in his book. She got the Caliber around a week and a half  after we began the diet. Did I get from 16% to the 8.3% that the Caliber said I was at? We will never know for certain. Given that I could have been off by 5% in my beginning estimations and the fact that the Calibers can be off by much higher than 5% who knows the true improvement.

The reason I bring this up is to suggest to you to not measure your body fat percentage unless you want to do it for fun or expect to make drastic results. I was often referenced as skinny, so you can expect that I did not have much body fat to lose. When I mentioned the importance of measurements, it is best to know that it is even more important to have very accurate measurements.

Kettle-Ball Swing

is much more of a workout than you will first expect. Start off with a light weight and work your way up slowly.

Dead-lifts Suck For Some

Mainly people with past back problems. If you have had any previous back issues, start doing dead-lifts without any weights. To prepare yourself for the intensity and the extreme results of dead-lifts you can try these real simple back exercises and really focus on your core strength. In addition, kettle ball swings are perfect for preparing every muscle in your body for dead-lifts.

The Vertical Jump

I increased my jump by almost 5 inches by following the tips. The advice also allowed me to almost jump onto a 5 foot high box at Gymfinity during Parkour training.

Sleep Is For The Weak, Sleep is For The Strong

I always say sleep is for the weak because I am up late every night writing, researching, working and living the success journey. It’s sad that there are more people out there that want sleep more than they want to be successful. Thanks to the 4-Hour Body, I am now able to sleep even less and have more energy. I now understand my REM cycle and the other sleeping lessons Tim shared. As a result, I would like to revert my statement. Sleep is not for the weak, Sleep is for the strong. It is for the strong because I know that those who get the most done and accomplish the most each day sleep the best without the need to sleep the longest and they will be more successful than everyone else.

The Best way to predict the future is to invent it – Alan Kay

Beginning Measurements>>>> Most Recent Measurements

16% body-fat according to the reference pictures in the book.   >>>> 7% body-fat according to caliber

Neck: 14 inches  >>>> 14 inches

Chest: 35.5 inches   >>>> 36 inches

Waist: 31.5 inches   >>>> 31.5 inches

Hips: 37 inches    >>>> 38 inches

Thighs: 21.5 inches   >>>> 21.5 inches

Calves: 15 inches   >>>>> 15 inches

Biceps 11 inches.    >>>>> 11 inches

Weight 165 pounds.    >>>> 154 pounds

Notice how almost all of my measurements stayed the same, but I lost 11 pounds. The 4 Hour Body technique allows you to cut the fat but keep the muscle. Uniquely for me, my loss of fat was at a equal relationship with the gain of muscle. Now it’s time to really kick up the muscle gain.

Stay Positive and Experimental

Garth E. Beyer